Midtown’s Role in the 1996 Olympics: Torchbearer for the Arts
07/02/2026
BY KARL SMITH-DAVIDS
When Atlanta won the bid to host the 1996 Olympic Games, city leaders understood that the world's attention would extend beyond stadiums and finish lines to Atlanta itself – especially its culture, history, and ambition. What emerged alongside the athletic competition was one of the most ambitious arts and cultural projects in Olympic history. And some of the most memorable experiences were right here in Midtown.
The Olympic Arts Festival (OAF) was built around two organizing themes – 'Southern Connections' and 'International Connections' – that reflected both Atlanta's roots and its aspirations. By the time the festival closed, more than 3,000 artists had shared their work across 190 ticketed shows, 23 exhibitions, and 19 public works of art, plus the sprawling Southern Crossroads celebration at Centennial Olympic Park. For a city that aspired to be seen by the world as cultured, sophisticated, and international, the arts festival was both a proving ground and a coming-out party.
Here are some of the local arts projects worth celebrating on this 30th anniversary of Atlanta’s Olympic Games.
Rings: Five Passions in World Art
High Museum of Art · June 1 – August 4, 1996
At the center of the Olympic Arts Festival's visual arts program was an exhibition at the High Museum that many would come to regard as the crown jewel: 'Rings: Five Passions in World Art’ recast the five Olympic rings not as a symbol of competition, but of human emotions that have resonated across centuries, continents, and media.
The five categories - Love, Anguish, Awe, Triumph, and Joy - organized an astonishing breadth of multicultural art sourced from museums across the globe. Highlights of sculpture and painting from the National Gallery anchored the exhibition, supplemented by textbook masterpieces that had rarely, if ever, traveled to the American South. Monet, Picasso, Rodin, and El Greco were among the names on the walls of the High Museum, alongside works from traditions and regions rarely represented at major American exhibitions.
The result was an exhibition that felt genuinely Olympic in its spirit – a message about what art and humanity share across cultural differences.
The Gay & Lesbian Visitors' Center
Center Stage Theatre · July 19 – August 4, 1996
Within the festival's broad cultural programming, one of its quieter but most significant contributions was a dedicated hub for LGBTQ+ visitors and artists. For the duration of the Games, the Gay and Lesbian Visitors' Center operated at Center Stage Theatre in Midtown, creating a welcoming space for the tens of thousands of LGBTQ+ tourists who came to the city for the Centennial Games.
More than just a hospitality desk, the Center presented art exhibitions and performances that brought together established artists and gave emerging voices from Atlanta's LGBTQ+ community a platform they had rarely enjoyed at this scale. The space represented a meaningful, if still fragile, moment of institutional recognition. For many visitors, it was a place where Atlanta felt most like itself: diverse, creative, and genuinely hospitable.
A Festival of Southern Connections
Various Venues · June 1 – August 4, 1996
Beyond the High Museum of Art, the Olympic Arts Festival spread across Atlanta in ways that illuminated the city's own cultural geography.
The theater program created a partnership with the Center for Puppetry Arts, during which new works premiered and a new museum space was constructed in Midtown to house a special exhibition. In all, more than 50 performances were hosted at the Center for Puppetry Arts during the Games.
Dance was perhaps the festival's most international dimension. The Dance Series, presented by Sara Lee Corp., brought twelve companies to Atlanta, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Miami City Ballet, the Soweto Street Beat Dance Company, the Royal Thai Ballet, Pilobolus Dance Theatre, and the Atlanta Ballet. The range was extraordinary: a world premiere by Germany's Gregor Seyffert and Company; a full-length ballet by internationally acclaimed choreographer Jiri Kylián of the Netherlands Dance Theater, based on an ancient Japanese fairy tale; and a tribute to the new South Africa by the Soweto troupe.
Georgia Tech’s Midtown Connection to the Centennial Games
July 19 – August 4, 1996
Though no competitions took place directly in Midtown, the neighborhood's edges were very much part of the Olympic geography. Just to the north, at Georgia Tech, the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, now known as McCamish Pavilion, hosted boxing, while the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, now the Campus Recreation Center, was the site of swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, and water polo.
For locals who followed these sports, the aquatic venue held a particular resonance. That’s because it was designed by Bill and Ivenue Love-Stanley, the first African-American man and woman, respectively, to graduate from Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture. Their firm, with offices in Midtown, brought to the commission technical expertise and inspired design on a world stage. The building they created was functional, elegant – a physical embodiment of the Olympic ideals the festival had been celebrating in galleries and theaters all summer long.
The Olympic Arts Festival’s Legacy: A Springboard for Midtown Arts Organizations
According to estimates, more than 2.6 million people attended festival events, including both ticketed and nonticketed performances and exhibitions. And following the Olympic Arts Festival, several success stories emerged inside Midtown arts and cultural venues.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra grew its profile and broadened its appeal for regional audiences with an appetite for programming that crossed genres.
Pearl Cleage's 'Blues for an Alabama Sky,' which premiered at the Alliance Theatre during the festival, went on to productions in New York and beyond.
The festival had done exactly what its architects hoped: it seeded new work and raised the stature of local arts institutions that outlasted the Games themselves, beginning right here in Midtown.
Sources:
Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Olympic coverage, May-August 1996